PGR fails to find case against former Moza Banco officials

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PGR fails to find case against former Moza Banco officials

3:10 CAT | 22 Jan 2019

In file CoM

The Attorney General’s Office has not found enough evidence to prove that there were criminal activities and bad management at Moza Banco, it has been learnt.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office abstained from accusing the former Moza administrators of having taken the bank to the crisis, as requested by the Banco de Moçambique.

Last year, Banco de Moçambique complained to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic against former Moza Banco managers, demanding that they be held criminally held liable for alleged harmful management, which would have led to the bank’s bankruptcy.

In its complaint, the Central Bank cited all representatives of Moza’s governing bodies, most notably Prakash Ratilal, Ibrahimo Ibrahimo, César Gomes, João Fernandes Jorge, Luís Magaço Júnior, Paulo Dambusse, Marques Ratilal, the Chairman of the Board of the General Shareholders’ Meeting, Castigo Langa, and members of the Fiscal Council, accusing them of having “omitted functional duties inherent to their responsibilities at Moza, namely the lack of approval of instruments that would enable the bank to provide management of risks inherent to its activity “.

However, in a dispatch dated December 26 quoted by the Mozambican newspaper Carta de Moçambique, the Attorney General’s office said “it found that there were not enough elements to prove the existence of a criminal offense and of any harmful management” by the officials of Moza Banco”.

In relation to risk management, the Public Prosecution Office considers that “it is proven that Moza Banco, through its managers, prepared and submitted to the Bank of Mozambique a Risk Management Program”.

“…in the context of legal-criminal analysis , we consider that it is irrelevant that the submitted program did not merit the favorable analysis of the regulator, since the imputation of this legal type of crime is based on the omission of the duty of diligence and not the lack of technical competence of the administrators translated into the technical perfection of the document,” it stated.

As regards the allegations that the administrators were responsible for the capital losses suffered by Moza Banco, namely a poor return on financial investments, a solvency ratio of -6.07 per cent, liquidity shortage and deterioration of own funds, the Public Ministry argued that the deficiencies detected were duly processed in administrative procedures.

“…in the period under analysis occurred in the country negative economic events with the potential to negatively impact on any entity of the profile of Moza Banco, such as depreciation of the Metical, lack of support from external donors as a result of the discovery of hidden debts, among others,” said the Public Ministry which also concluded that Castigo Langa, Edgar Baloi and Paula Ferreira were not on the list because they did not exercise management functions.

Source: O País